Rob Portman's Gay Marriage Nod Described As A Career-Ender

By
Carlos Santoscoy
Published:
June 09, 2013

A Christian conservative has described
Ohio Senator Rob Portman's support for gay marriage as ending his
career.

In March, Portman announced in an op-ed
that he had reversed course on the issue of marriage equality and
credited his son's recent coming out for the change of heart. The
announcement made Portman, who faces voters in 2016, the only Senate
Republican to publicly endorse the institution. Since then, Illinois
Senator Mark Kirk, also a Republican, endorsed marriage equality.

Phil Burress, who heads the
Cincinnati-based Citizens for Community Values (CCV), told the
Cleveland
Plain Dealer that Portman's “career is over” in 2016.

“This is a policy with the pro-family
movement, not just us,” Burress said. “There's two
non-negotiable issues: abortion and marriage, or the 'homosexual
agenda.' And if you're wrong on either one of those, [we] will
campaign against you and we will defeat you.”

Other leaders appeared to agree that
the issue would hurt Portman, at least among social conservatives.

“I can't tell the future on this, but
I don't see how it could be just a blip,” said
Gary Bauer, president of of the Virginia-based American Values.
“And I guess one way to look at it would be if a Democratic senator
ran promising the gay rights movement that he would be in favor of
same-sex marriage and then got into office and reversed on that.
Would the gay-rights movement say to him, 'Oh, that's OK we notice
you've also been voting pro-choice and against gun rights?'”